Spartanburg City Council votes to close Swim Center

Monday

Dec 10, 2012 at 6:49 PM

In a surprise move Monday night, Spartanburg City Council voted to close the Swim Center next fall.

BY LYNNE P. SHACKLEFORDlynne.shackleford@shj.com

In a surprise move Monday night, Spartanburg City Council voted to close the Swim Center next fall. On a motion by Councilwoman Linda Dogan, Councilwoman Cate Ryba, Councilman Sterling Anderson and Mayor Junie White voted to close the indoor swim facility in the fall in light of significant capital needs, projected at $2 million. The city will offer membership subsidies for income-eligible city residents who are now members of the center to use the YMCA for a year. The subsidies will cost the city about $25,000.Councilmen Robert Reeder and Jerome Rice and Councilwoman Jan Scalisi voted against closing the center. The vote came after a failed motion from Anderson to close the center in the summer. The summer months are busy for walk-up users.Assistant City Manager Chris Story and City Manager Ed Memmott gave council the benefits of offering subsidies for one year. No vote was expected on the center Monday night, although council has been weighing the center’s closure and options for months. Memmott then asked whether council needed more information in order to decide whether to keep the center open. Renovating the center would be costly, and in addition to the center’s $410,000 net annual operating costs, staff has continually said that no private money is available for repairs to an existing facility. Reeder then expressed frustration that council had asked about including an indoor aquatics center during the planning stages of the C.C. Woodson Community Center and that there hasn’t been adequate maintenance on existing facilities. Memmott then provided a lengthy list of costly challenges the city has faced since he has been city manager during the past three years. Among those Memmott recited include the Arkwright dump, the significantly unfunded liability in the pension plan, aging storm water infrastructure, a grossly overstated reserve balance and $4 million in claims associated with the Marriott at Renaissance Park, which was then owned by a bank. In addition and simultaneously, there were other opportunities for the city to leverage funds with the University of South Carolina Upstate’s George Dean Johnson Jr. College of Business, upgrades to Barnet Park, renovations at the Spartanburg Downtown Airport, Stewart Park and the north-side initiative. “All when operating expenditures matched operating revenues,” Memmott said in response to Reeder’s comments. “There was no gap. We had a litany of challenges. We were simply not in a position to take all those on at one time. There were too many uncertainties and we learned from a consultant that we had $20 million in liabilities with building facilities.”Since, Memmott said staff has looked at the facilities so council could make strategic decisions with “eyes wide open.”Dogan said the responsibility for the state of existing facilities lies not only with staff, but with council, which would be best served by “moving this day forward to do the best we can do.”“We have to make sacrifices to get to a better place,” she said. Anderson applauded the research that had gone into the Swim Center and said that council wouldn’t be good stewards of taxpayer money if it continued to sink one-fourth or one-fifth of the parks and recreation budget into the Swim Center, which is used by only a small percentage of city residents. Scalisi said she was concerned that the subsidy would only be available to some city residents for one year. Dogan voiced her opposition to subsidies for 80 city residents. “We are looking at building a new T.K. Gregg, Sterling (Anderson) has no recreational facility in his district, how do we have the money to subsidize for some people and not others?” Dogan said. Memmott explained that the funds would provide for a transitional period for low-income residents. Reeder and Rice said they were concerned that the services provided by the Swim Center and used by residents who lived near the center couldn’t be replaced. Community Services Director Mitch Kennedy said the parks and recreation department would work to ensure city youth could still receive free swimming lessons and would help transport children to various facilities that offered services.

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